Welcome to my blog!

We find ourselves in challenging times. To meet them more easily, I believe involves challenging ourselves to move beyond old, established habits and patterns.

Perhaps I am a bit late fully entering into the 21st century by starting my blog now, in 2010! In that my work and message has so much to do with slowing down and settling into a deeper knowing beyond and prior to our cultural modes, it may be appropriate to step extra slowly into the world of blogging and other cyber realities.

I suspect that, if you are drawn to my blog and the words here, you may also value this slower, deeper state we are all capable of. I invite you to read on and regularly, and hope the words below can support you in enhancing your ability to be, even in the midst of all the doing required in our modern world.

Sunday, 1 March 2015

Re-Connection and Renewal

“The body renews itself through its own dissolution, similar to the gel-sol phase transition of the cell. Paralysis can be seen as an uninterrupted manifestation of gel until the wind of breath, moving across and into the sequestered bound fluid, frees it into its vibrant potency.” - Emilie Conrad, Life on Land

Humans, unlike lizards, are known to be
unable to regenerate limbs. What we are capable of in terms of healing and
renewal is nonetheless remarkable.

I have had a few situations in my own life when
I witnessed my own nervous system rewiring, as well as the honour of seeing
this process in my clients and students.

My most dramatic event occurred immediately
following a fall where I sustained a concussion. Lying dazed on the floor at
the folk dance workshop where the accident occurred, I struggled to respond to
the question being posed to me. There was doctor at the workshop, a friend of
mine. Being employed at the time as an Occupational Therapist working with
patients with neurological issues, I understood why the doctor was asking me
the question. I also knew the answer. Responding, however, was another matter.

I have no idea how long I lay there trying
to get my mouth and vocal cords to speak my name. It was as if every nerve in
my body and brain had been singed by the shock of the concussion and they could
not respond. It was possibly the hardest work of my entire life finding those
pathways I had known so well for so many years. I could almost feel the
electric wave traveling down my nerves, igniting each muscle, as if for the
first time. When my name finally emerged from my mouth, I began to laugh. The
whole room joined me. It was such a relief. I seemed to be re-connected.

I didn't know then how profoundly those
moments would affect me and my life, and how many more subtler re-connections
would happen over the years. The dissolution of my form experienced through the
concussion, provided an remarkable opportunity to re-design my nervous system.
My life changed accordingly.

My first, much less dramatic but equally
educational experience with rewiring occurred the first time I tried to watch a
movie with glasses on. I normally wore the glasses for driving, but being a
young university student without a car, I rarely drove. For some reason, I
decided to try my glasses on this movie. I was amazed by my experience. The
colours and shapes flashing before my eyes were brilliant and fascinating, but
they didn't make any sense! I didn't recognise them. Gradually, with great
effort, I began to make out familiar objects. Faces came into focus and
suddenly the whole scene fell into place.

I realised I had for a few minutes been
learning to see again. I was reminded of stories of blind people gaining sight
and having to learn to make sense of the visual stimuli coming in. That is
exactly what I was doing. My brain was rewiring. It was learning to sort and
organise the new sensory stimuli it was receiving into perceptions. Ah! Those
lines and colours are a face. That shape is the branch of a tree. Once the
connection was made, familiar neural pathways were again accessible and I could
go back to just enjoying the movie.

My usual way of perceiving had been
interrupted, facilitating a dissolution of patterning enabling renewed visual
perception. While it is rare to have such clear experiences of rewiring, this
kind of reconnection happens all the time. Being aware of the process is a
great gift, which I believe also supports the connecting.

Interestingly, the day I woke up with this
blog writing itself I my head, I later listened to an interview with one of my
favourite speakers, cell biologist Bruce Lipton. He spoke of how bringing
mindfulness to our everyday thoughts can interrupt early programming,
supporting the change we desire.

Mindfulness has recently gained popularity
and reputation as a valuable adjunct to psychotherapy. Research shows how it
changes our neurobiology, assisting us in shifting from habitual defensive
stances to more creative, present time oriented presence.

Lipton spoke in his interview of how cells
can be either in protection mode or growth mode. One walls off the outside
world. The other expands out it not it. We can make choices moment by moment as
to which way to orient, but our cells cannot be in both modes simultaneously.

Mindfulness practices teach us to attend to
the sensory input available to us, prior to the interpretations made by our
minds based on history. Returning to this first order of experience enables us
to be responsive to what is actually presenting in the moment, rather than
being limited by our perception of it based on past experience. While remembring
past experience can be useful, we are freest when it becomes part of the mix,
rather than our overpowering master.

While I don’t recommend a concussion to
anyone, those moments of re-finding my words gave me a remarkable opportunity
to slow down and return to the basics of neural functioning. I remain forever
grateful for that and other ways that concussion changed my life, interfering with
my ability to operate on automatic.

The paralysis I experienced gave me a taste
of the potential of dissolution. As Emile Conrad, founder of Continuum Movement
notes in the quote above, allowing our form (gel) to dissolve into a more fluid
sol state, enables us to access renewed vibrancy. Conrad often referred to how
most of us are in a state of paralysis, solidly ensconced in our habitual ways
of being. Dissolution and its associated renewal is a major intention of the
slow micro-movements, breaths and sounds of Continuum. Personally, I prefer
these gentle, mindful, fluid movement inquiries or the similarly subtle work of
Craniosacral Biodynamics to having to heal from a concussion, but we all have
our own ways of returning to and discovering our origins!